Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/39

Rh of the American army encamped around Boston, of which place the British forces were in possession. The tidings of the battle of Bunker Hill reached him at New York on the 25th, and the next day he was in the saddle again on his way to Cambridge. He arrived there on July 2, and established his headquarters in the old Vassall (afterward Craigie) mansion, which has recently been known as the residence of the poet Longfellow. On July 3 he took formal command of the army, drawing his sword under an ancient elm, which has of late years been suitably inscribed. The American army numbered about 17,000 men, but only 14,500 were fit for duty. Coming hastily from different colonies, they were without supplies of tents or clothing, and there was not ammunition enough for nine cartridges to a man. Washington s work in combining and organizing this mass of raw troops was most embarrassing and arduous. But he persevered untiringly, and after a siege of eight months succeeded in driving the British from Boston on March 17, 1776. For this grand exploit congress awarded him a splendid gold medal, which bore an admirable likeness of him on one side, and on the other side the inscription "Hostibus primo fugatis Bostonium recuperatum." Copies of this medal in silver and bronze have been multiplied, but the original gold medal has found a fit place, within a few years past, in the Boston Public Library.